Inappropriate behavior
With training, you can teach your dog to navigate the nuances of everyday life with the desired behavior. Unfortunately, we see that many do not achieve this success, and it ends up affecting the dog.
It is your responsibility to teach the dog self-control.
It is not your responsibility to control your dog, but to train it so that it can control itself. We have all rewarded unwanted behavior to some extent. It is almost unavoidable not to have done so - just as dogs constantly learn, so do we as dog owners. In our guestbook on Facebook, we help our members with advice and guidance, and we are often asked, "How long can my puppy bark when training alone at home?" Everyone wants an answer in terms of time - unfortunately, we cannot tell you that, as training alone at home is also part of what you offer when you are not training alone at home.
As dog owners, we can become unsure when we see how smart our dogs are - and how easily they can manipulate us. Puppies/dogs can make us react to whines or barks - and we reward inappropriate behavior without knowing what consequences it will have in the long run. Just be aware that a small innocent habit or action from the dog's side can over time develop into a big irritation in everyday life. If you are doing alone at home training - and the puppy/dog whines or barks, they are capable of turning up the volume to get your attention.
You should carefully consider whether the initial behavior you see in your puppy/dog will be okay or not to live with in the long run. Dogs live to achieve and avoid - in this case, it is about the puppy/dog wanting attention from you - which becomes a habit. This habit is passed on to the puppy/dog and goes everywhere.
Read more tips and tricks - see our article: Dog Learning.
Examples of inappropriate behavior:
- Whining persistently when you talk to other people
- Seeking contact by nudging or barking when you are on the phone or watching TV
- Whining and pawing because it wants food from your plate
- Whining, barking or scratching the door repeatedly when it wants to go in and out of the garden
- Knowing the time when it should be fed and begging you to serve it
- Barking during training to get treats from your treat bag
It all starts when the puppy is 8 weeks old with you - everything the puppy learns from 4 weeks to 16 weeks will be carried into adult life. It has learned that attractive events happen promptly if it whines or barks. As the puppy grows, the challenges do not get any smaller. It will escalate and become an annoying habit. It is your responsibility to ensure that your dog can navigate our life.
Focus on training the puppy with patience and structured and consistent learning that shows the dog that it no longer succeeds with the unwanted behavior. If you have an adult dog that has received a response to the habit for years, you should take into account that the longer the problem has been established, the longer and more patience you will need to invest in the home training.
Become part of our online universe: Learn the REASOM life philosophy.